Linear projects with repetitive activity in units are considered for investigation, and a two-stage profit optimization model for linear scheduling problems using constraint programming (CP) is proposed. To maintain work continuity for repetitive activities, interruption time and crew...

Hong Kong and Shenzhen, while being interrelated in many aspects, have encountered different types of demand shocks throughout the past decade. This is likely due to disparities in market conditions and degrees of government regulations. In the light of such differences in property price trends,...

Research is described that sought to understand how senior managers within regional contracting firms conceptualize and enact competitiveness. Existing formal discourses of construction competitiveness include the discourse of 'best practice' and the various theories of competitiveness as...

Within construction, roles are generally thought of in terms of a division of labour, tasks and responsibilities, established through contractual and/or cultural relations. Moreover, roles are also presumed to be relatively stable. Drawing upon actor network theory, roles are re-conceptualized...

The growing interest in informal and emergent features of organizations has accompanied changes in both the dominant forms of organization and prevailing academic views about how best to think about and research them. It is argued here that currently espoused dichotomous characterizations of...

Using an online survey, value management practice by construction professionals in South Africa is investigated. Opinions were sought from architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, and project and construction managers. An objective is to test the UK-based assertion of Kelly et al. (2004) that...

Using a practice lens perspective, the environmental professional's role is examined in relation to social practices in construction projects. Drawing on several case studies of environmental management, the findings show that contradictory practices prevent environmental professionals from...

The small amount of published research into construction project meetings demonstrates some of the principal difficulties of investigating such sensitive business environments. Using the Bales Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) research method, data on group interaction were collected. A project...

Until the present, the supervision engineer's liability risks in China have mostly been analysed by means of a qualitative approach by which it is difficult to identify the key liability risks of the Chinese supervision profession. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted to find out the...

Design-builders play a vital role in the success of DB projects. In the construction market of the People's Republic of China, most of the design-builders, however, lack adequate competences to conduct the DB projects successfully. The objective of this study is, therefore, to identify the key...